{"title":"The paradox of government-guided funds: A negative impact on corporate ESG performance?!","authors":"Xubo Zhang , Xinyu Zhang , Yanbin Tu","doi":"10.1016/j.frl.2025.106900","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the relationship between government-guided fund (GGF) investment and corporate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) performance using China's A-share companies that received GGFs from 2013 to 2022. Our analysis indicates a significant negative correlation between GGFs holdings and ESG performance, with one period lagged effect. This negative correlation is pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises but insignificant for state-owned enterprises. For state-owned enterprises, robust regional economic development and stringent environmental regulations mitigate the negative GGF correlation. This study provides new insights into the relation of GGFs with corporate sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12167,"journal":{"name":"Finance Research Letters","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 106900"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Finance Research Letters","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325001643","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between government-guided fund (GGF) investment and corporate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) performance using China's A-share companies that received GGFs from 2013 to 2022. Our analysis indicates a significant negative correlation between GGFs holdings and ESG performance, with one period lagged effect. This negative correlation is pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises but insignificant for state-owned enterprises. For state-owned enterprises, robust regional economic development and stringent environmental regulations mitigate the negative GGF correlation. This study provides new insights into the relation of GGFs with corporate sustainability.
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